Branching Out: Joint Forest Management in India

By Nandini Sundar, Roger Jeffery, Neeraj I. Peters et al
Oxford University Press, 2001
Rs 595

This book is a collaborative review of the JFM program in India, and comes as a scholarly yet refreshingly analytical study of the origins, regional variations and shortcomings of JFM. It shows that far from being a simple, unified program, JFM is a complex outcome of debates, policies and practices, all recent in ecological and institutional terms, all constantly evolving. The authors demonstrate how the livelihood objectives of poor people living in and around forests are still far from being met. In the process of implementing 'participatory forestry,' communities and their needs are being reconfigured.

The volume combines detailed ethnographic work at village level with a survey of NGOs and forest departments at the state and national levels. With the fieldwork spread over 16 villages in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, the book will be of widespread interest to a broad spectrum of readers including researchers and students of environment and ecology, economists, sociologists, activists and policy makers in the development sector.

Neeraj I Peters, co-author, is Ex. Program Officer, Winrock International India, has over a decade of core field experience in forestry across the country.